West Sussex couple believe two-year-old dog Remy's large lobes slow his descent as he suffers only minor injuries when he falls face first onto concrete

12:28PM BST 23 Jul 2015

A Basset hound that jumped out of a third-floor window was saved by his large floppy ears, his owners believe.

The dog, called Remy, plummeted more than 30ft (10m) out of an attic after spotting a cat on the ground below.

He fell onto concrete in Steyning, West Sussex, but his owners say his fall was broken by his large lobes as they provided some resistance and slowed his descent.

The two-year-old dog suffered only minor injuries despite landing on his face when he dived out of an open window.

Owner Suzi Lane, who was out at the time, said: "I don't know if he was trying to glide down or if it was his ears that saved him. It's just a miracle."

She and partner Richard Bradley had only adopted the black and white dog from local animal rescue charity Wadars eight weeks earlier.

Ms Lane said: "He's quite clingy and doesn't like to be left alone, but we have to go out sometimes and this was one of those occasions.

"We were at a concert and had a couple of missed calls from our next-door neighbours saying that the dog had fallen out of the attic window.

"Another couple of neighbours had taken him to the vets and we assumed he must have massive internal injuries. My partner rushed to the vets and unbelievably we discovered that Remy hadn't even broken anything - it's a miracle."

The couple usually kept the door to the attic shut, but Remy managed to nose his way into the room after Mr Bradley left the door slightly ajar.

Mr Bradley, a firefighter, thinks Remy might have seen their cat Otis in the garden below and decided to join him via the attic window.

Ms Lane added: "It was a shock at the time, but he is an amazing dog. I said about a week into owning him that he was trouble and now he's proved it. We love him so much, though."

She said X-rays revealed he had suffered "only very minor injuries and was fit and well to go home the next day".

"Remy was unbelievably lucky," she added. "He suffered some slight bruising to his sternum and a partial left lung collapse. We gave him an hour of oxygen therapy, intravenous fluids, pain relief and carried out X-rays. It really was astonishing.

"When X-raying him, we expected many broken bones, internal bleeding, fractures and severely collapsed lungs - but he was pretty much unscathed."

Mr Bradley added: "He's really naughty and once stole our dinner. We found him out on the lawn eating our quiche.

"He has only little legs, but he's remarkably agile and will get up onto the dining room table and finish off anything left there if there's no one looking.

"And at any opportunity he'll nip and see if the cat has left any food. He's high maintenance - it's worse than having a child, but he's lovely."